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Eight Traits Every Powerful Female Leader Possesses

YEC is an invite-only organization comprised of the world's most successful entrepreneurs 40 and younger.

With only 2.4% of women in a CEO seat at a Fortune 500 company, these women have a vital role. They represent women everywhere.

While closing the gender gap still has a long way to go, being a good leader takes some knack, and for women in these leadership roles, the position may be even more daunting. Women often need to prove themselves a bit more than their male counterparts and work harder to gain the respect of their peers. One thing is for certain: Some of the best and most powerful leaders to persevere are women.

To find out what these powerful women have in common, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share one trait that every powerful female leader should possess in today’s business world. Here is what they had to say:

Members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their insight.All images courtesy of Young Entrepreneur Council members.

1. Strength

Powerful women have the strength to take risks, learn from failure, deal with remarks, insults or stereotypes, and the courage to fight for what they believe in and to never give up, no matter how hard a challenge is. Being a female leader in a male-centric business world requires the strength and confidence to deal with every obstacle or setback. We need to be strong enough to believe in ourselves, even when people around us don't, and inspire others to do the same. The J. K. Rowling story of rags to riches is a great example of strength, confidence and courage. - Sama Jashnani, DownToDash

2. Perseverance

The business world is a highly unpredictable and stressful environment. Female leaders need to understand the fact that there is nothing within the biological gender that makes them less patient or less suitable for unpredictability. It's all up to specific individuals and their ability to learn and reach their goals despite the uncertainty around them. As the recent Google scandalproved, there is a tendency in our society to focus on biological research when it comes to evaluating individuals. But the scientific research is highly generalized and can't be applied to individuals in real life. Female leaders should be prepared to face those biases. Every person is unique and everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. - Artur Kiulian, Colab

3. The Ability To Create Women-Empowered Workplaces

Female leaders possess the same traits as their male counterparts: vision, perseverance, empathy, passion, etc. But one thing that next-generation female leaders need to have is to truly be at the forefront of creating women-empowered workplaces. While some policies have changed over time to create gender-equal workplaces, most have not been revamped to keep up with the times. We still see very few women taking leadership positions. Now is the time for female leaders to play a crucial role in redefining the future by building a work culture that embraces women, encourages them and grooms them to become future leaders. - Shilpi Sharma, Kvantum Inc.

4. Adaptability

All leaders, whether male or female, need to be confident, creative, and persevering, but above all else, they need to be adaptable. Every work environment and job position will have a unique set of demands, and those demands will continue to evolve as our technology, workforce, and clients’ needs do. Today’s leaders need to be able to weather these changes and wield them to their advantage. April Underwood, the vice president of product at Slack, is a great example of this quality in action. She’s helped maintain Slack’s relevance but also understands how to continuously enhance her own portfolio by launching side-projects like #Angels. - Anthony Katz, INexxus

5. Knowing How To Ignore Bad Advice

Being able to ignore bad advice (especially without offending the adviser) constantly makes the difference for me. The only way I keep moving forward is to stick to my plan, based on knowing my company, my industry, and my buyers, and to ignore advice from people without that kind of knowledge. Frankly, I'm only willing to listen to advice from people who have some experience with whatever I'm working on. I'll smile and nod, whether a software developer wants to tell me that I really ought to use reStructuredText to manage all of the content I write or a man wants to tell a room full of women how to be a woman in tech. These would-be advisers aren't ill-intentioned, but are guided by unconscious bias: My gender, age, and background have all triggered well-meaning advice. Just ignore them. - Thursday Bram, The Responsible Communication Style Guide

6. Grit

Grit is the perseverance and passion to achieve your long-term goals. Today’s business world is filled with uncertainty. And uncertainty creates distractions, stress, and obstacles. Having the "grittiness" to thrive in the face of adversity is necessary to be successful long-term. One woman who exemplifies grit is Jessica Matthews, CEO of Uncharted Play (renowned for their energy-generating "Soccket" ball). After a few less-than-optimal tries at creating energy-capturing products, she didn't give up, she pivoted and found her sweet spot! The company now enables energy-capture tech within various manufacturers' products. They also recently raised a $7 million Series A round, which Matthews says is the largest amount raised by a woman of color, ever! - Cooper Harris, Klickly

7. Knowing How To Ask

Women in particular often struggle to really claim their worth in an organization and shouldn’t shy away from opportunities and conversations that allow them access to resources and opportunities to propel them forward. These must often be asked for and managed (managing upward) to continue to progress. Powerful women know how to ask for what they want and need to be successful. Instead of falling victim to the situation or waiting for someone to see barriers and remove them, women must be empowered to take charge of these situations themselves. Those who do will be the most powerful in the room. Consider how someone like Sheryl Sandberg or Arianna Huffington would handle herself. - Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure

8. Tenacity

Women in leadership positions often face certain challenges that men never will. Many are family-oriented, and happy personal events like pregnancies and maternity leaves are deemed by some as damaging to momentum in the workplace. For these reasons, it’s especially important for female leaders to demonstrate both confidence and determination when it comes to business. These extra responsibilities are not justification for setting aside businesswomen under some pretense that they are delicate or distracted. Rather, they serve as testaments to the weight we can carry and our ability to act as leaders in all facets of life. - Kelly Woo, Profectus Financial

Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invitation-only, fee-based organization comprised of the world's most successful entrepreneurs 45 and younger. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year and have created tens of th...